Reddit reviews Live Free or Die: Essays, Fiction and Comments on Liberty, by New Hampshire Libertarians

In fact, gun-related crime increased for years after the 1996 “ban," and the only way disputants can claim that violent crime decreased is by widening the window of time beyond 10 years.

As John Lott has correctly noted, violent crime increased immediately after the “ban,” and homicides and armed robberies continued the upward trend until 2000, never dropping below 1996 levels until after 2010 (in the case of armed robberies, they still hadn’t gone below 1996 levels by 2010).

As Miguel Faria, MD. Noted, after the Aussie “ban” was insituted:

That same year in the state of Victoria, there was a 300 percent increase in homicides committed with firearms. The following year, robberies increased almost 60 percent in South Australia. By 1999, assaults had increased in New South Wales by almost 20 percent. Two years following the gun ban/confiscation, armed robberies rose by 73 percent, unarmed robberies by 28 percent, kidnappings by 38 percent, assaults by 17 percent and manslaughter by 29 percent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

John Lott also notes that gun ownership eventually returned to per-capita levels that mirrored the rates prior to the “ban.” So, first, the claim that the “ban” saw a resultant decrease in violent crime, including homicides, is false. Second, violent crime rates only began to decrease years later, as guns returned to Australian hands against the wishes of the politicians writing the laws.

All this while, the “ban” created what one might expect: a huge and dangerous black market for firearms in Oz. It seems many Aussies who wanted to use guns still found them, and peacefully-minded people were forced to go to the black market.

Meanwhile, during the same early-year period of the Aussie “ban,” the U.S. saw a staggering increase in gun ownership, and violent crime, including gun-related homicides and other acts, decreased dramatically.

And guess what? Even after Bill Clinton’s presidency inspired worried gun owners to keep and bear more arms, the per-capita ownership of firearms continued to increase upon his departure, and violent crime continued to decrease.

Here is the link to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting stats from 2007 to 2011 to prove it. Between 2007 and 2011, the number of violent crimes committed with a gun decreased by over 220,000.

As Larry Bell wrote for Forbes on a Pew studyof gun homicide rates between 1993 and 2013:

Their accounting shows a 49 percent decline in the homicide rate, and a 75 percent decline of non-fatal violent crime victimization.

Meanwhile, in the U.K., violent crime and gun crime increased after their draconian gun “bans” of 1997. Over the next two years, as Dr. Faria and I noted in my book, “Live Free or Die”:

While robberies rose 81% in England and Wales , they fell 21% in the US. Likewise, assaults increased 53% in England and Wales, but declined 27% in the US.

Even the old image of the unarmed British Bobby was lost after the “gun ban,” as the U.K. government created armed “19” units to combat violence.

The “hot burglary” rate per-capita in the U.K. is also much higher (50%) than in the US (13%). That means that thieves don’t case a home as often in the U.K., and they do case them in the U.S. Why? As John Lott notes in his monumental book, “More Guns, Less Crime,” interviews with actual criminals tell us that they case homes to avoid confrontations with potentially armed residents.

So what is the takeaway?

How about this: criminals change their behavior when they suspect a potential victim or group of potential victims might be armed. They hunt for easier prey